


Taerve Uni

by greygerbil



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Character Who Was Thought Dead Is Alive, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mpreg, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:20:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: It has been ten years since the destruction of his village and Evfra had no reason to believe he would ever see his husband again.
Relationships: Evfra de Tershaav/Original Male Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31
Collections: Iddy Iddy Bang Bang! 2020





	Taerve Uni

“This way!”

Evfra’s voice carried through the heated, sand-filled air. The radiation on Eos was not dangerous anymore, but it was still a miserably overheated dust bowl of a planet. Evfra thanked the stars that the aliens had settled here, though. Without their relays, they would never have found the readings that pointed them to cluster of angaran forced labour camps. Evfra had interpreted the data with one glance, remembering the shield encryptions that his technicians had struggled with years ago when the Resistance hadn’t even made it off Voeld yet.

And these camps really were as old as their security suggested – they had pulled data from a console while they pushed forward, fighting the kett guards and brute-forcing through the systems that kept the place locked down. The last prisoners, the majority of which were from Havarl, had been brought here seven years ago. There had been little reason to keep security up to date on a planet the angara never visited until the Nexus had started expanding and by then the kett had already started fighting on too many other, more important fronts to bother with an old camp complex such as this. Evfra was sure they’d intended to work the remaining slaves to death in their mines and factories and then scrap it all for parts and move on to more fruitful ventures. He’d seen this before; too often, they had only found the hollowed ruins and dust-covered bones.

Instead, Evfra now herded a group of haggard-looking angara in rags towards the Resistance ships. There had to be six or seven hundred of them, maybe more.

“There are going to be a lot of happy people when we return,” Valla said next to him, checking her gun’s magazine.

“Yes. Get them on the ships as quickly as possible. Take care you leave no one behind.”

Evfra had done this often enough to know that it wouldn’t be as easy as one always wished. Some of these lost ones were lovers that had been replaced, would have children that might balk at the sight of them because they didn’t recognise them anymore, or might find the loved ones they had hoped to see again already dead themselves. They’d never liberated anyone who had been gone for longer than two or three years, either; prisoners rarely made it even that long in the kett camps. This was unprecedented.

However, this was not the moment to outline the depressing details. For every relationship sundered by time, there would be another sustained in loving memory. Even those who had no one at all to return to could rebuild. Evfra, who’d never been captured, but at one point had been perfectly alone with no one there to care if he lived or died, knew this for certain. If all else failed, angara were always happy to welcome a lost soul back into the community. It was the beating, caring heart to the culture of his people that Evfra had always so much admired even when he himself was not its most shining beacon.

Evfra waved down Lieutenant Feldin.

“While we take them back to Aya, feed them and let them get a few hours of sleep, then fill them in on the basics. They likely don’t even know what organisation we belong to.”

The Resistance had only moved to Aya five years ago, after all.

“What about the aliens?” she asked.

“Tell them about that, too. Make it palatable, explain to them how they helped us push back the kett. It will create confusion, but they’ll hear about them soon enough. I’d rather they don’t first learn about the Nexus from someone who hates them.”

With a nod, Feldin strode away, repeating his orders into her comm channel to the other lieutenants. Evfra left it to her and instead jogged past the lines of prisoners. It seemed some had already figured out he was in charge, since he felt many gazes levelled at him. Considering very few of these people would have lived with actually functioning resistance chapters back in the day, it was unsurprising, but under his armour his face was hidden like that of any other soldier and an explanation of his role would have to wait. 

His people were still returning from their sweep of the buildings with stragglers in tow. It would be a long day still, but not one wasted like so many had been over the years, and knowing that, Evfra had no trouble keeping up the force in his voice while he switched between six Resistance comm channels, shouting commands as he moved towards the mine shaft again.

-

Between briefing Paaran Shie and the mayors of Havarl and Voeld, the Moshae, his Resistance leaders, the Nexus, the mayor of Prodromos, and arranging for emergency accommodations for his seven hundred and sixty-five returnees who sat cramped in every angaran ship they had been able to flag down and a couple of loaners from the Nexus, the flight back to Aya seemed to take no time at all. Evfra was barely aware that he’d spent forty hours on his feet when he charged down the exit ramp of the ship to secure the space port for a safe landing even as the unusual number of ships drew an interested crowd of personnel and civilians. Luckily, Paaran greeted him halfway, a small delegation of diplomats and medics in tow. Jaal was with her, beaming.

“Good, you’re here. Have you received the lists?” Evfra asked her.

“Your people sent them in chunks as they questioned the rescued angara. We’re checking them against archives now. Jaal has already found a few names he’s acquainted with, too,” Paaran answered.

“I _know_ some of these families, Evfra! I can imagine their faces when they hear of the news. This is extraordinary!” Jaal burst out.

“Yes, at a glance we saw most of them are from Havarl,” Evfra said with a nod.

He allowed himself something like a smile. He’d taken a few hits from the kett and now that the adrenaline had subsided, he was eager to get his hand on some pain killers, but he was not finished here yet. Standing on the small balcony overseeing the landing platform, he had a good view on the rescued angara. Some seemed almost unsteady as they stepped on Ayan ground, struck silent with awe. Some laughed, some cried, some only wore shaky smiles. There was, at least at first glance, not one among them who seemed entirely devoid of a reaction. That was good – Evfra preferred sadness and rage and even a lust for vengeance like Akksul had shown to the death of emotion. That was the only thing that could kill the spirit of an angara.

“Where are you putting them?” he asked Paaran.

“East quarters. We emptied the Doran Remembrance Tower.”

Evfra pushed off the railing, craning his neck to see which of his soldiers were close-by.

“Terran, Hariah, get back to headquarters and find me a couple dozen people to secure the Doran Remembrance Tower.” As much as he was certain these men and women would do their best to reintegrate, they might be traumatised or confused. It’d be best to at least have some eyes on them. “No grandstanding, don’t restrain them if not necessary, but remain vigilant. They have been through a lot.”

“Yes, Evfra,” Terran said, quickly turning.

The woman by his side did not answer.

“Hariah, do you need a personal invitation?” Evfra snapped.

“What?! No, not at all!”

As Hariah tore herself from the sight of the incoming prisoners and followed Terran, Evfra heard her asking him in a hushed voice what exactly their orders were. Even his more experienced soldiers had rarely seen a commotion such as this on Aya, so Evfra couldn’t truly blame her.

More Resistance members were drawing close now, spilling out of the ships alongside their charges. Evfra gave orders as they passed him by: secure the ships, call the Nexus, ask APEX units for a greater sweep of Eos in case there were more of these hidden camps. He could fire the commands off like shots since more and more tasks that needed doing had become obvious to him while he was still on the ship. Then there were the debriefings he hadn’t had time for after leaving Eos and which he decided to do on the spot.

“If I see you charging in like that again, I probably won’t see you again because you’ll be dead,” he barked at a troop that he’d seen descend through an unlit corridor. “You were lucky that you’d picked the empty hallway and that’s something you should not start relying on. Rookie mistakes! You will report to the training range for basics tomorrow-”

Someone tapped his shoulder. Evfra, mouth still opened to continue the dressing-down, turned with his eyes dangerously narrowed to the soldier who’d interrupted him. The man stumbled back a step.

“ _What_?”

“There’s – one of the prisoners wants to see you. He says he thinks he knows you.”

Paaran and Jaal, who’d turned to their own conversation while Evfra dealt with his men and women, looked at him with surprise. Evfra could only shrug. He hadn’t had time to have a closer look at the names his soldiers had collected from the prisoners.

“I saw there were a few from Voeld. An early Resistance member, maybe? You can send him-”

“No, not that.”

The voice emerged straight out of Evfra’s memories, where during a decade the misuse in a thousand replayed conversations had worn it out somewhat, distorted the original that Evfra had figured forever lost, yet could recognise out of a million. He turned fully away from the troops, from Evfra and Paaran, and lifted his eyes to look at the man who had climbed the stairs after the soldier.

He was taller than any of the other angara here, his skin a deep, verdant green that had always looked out of place in the frozen wastelands of Voeld. One of his eyes was missing, replaced with a patch of scar tissue, making Evfra wonder if it had been burned out on purpose, but the other one was still as shrewd and curious as ever. His broad, confident smile distracted from the injury on his face as much as from the fact that his left sleeve was folded up to his wrist where a hand should have been.

“When they told us that Evfra leads the Resistance, I thought it couldn’t be true that it is my Evfra. It’s such an uncommon name, though.”

Evfra wanted to say something to Basiira, but he could scarcely remember how to breathe. He could only stare.

“Evfra?” Jaal asked, after a long moment of silence. “Who is this?”

“My husband,” Evfra answered mechanically, with what little air he finally managed to suck into his lungs.

Basiira still smiled at him as he stepped forward and closed him in his arms. From the corner of his eyes, Evfra saw two of his soldiers readying their weapons, exchanging an uncertain glance. With one hand, he waved them off, which also reminded him to lift his arms and put them around Basiira.

_My husband._

“I’m sorry,” Basiira said, “I’m the only one of us who made it back. The others all died very early in a mining accident. I’d been split from then, so I survived.”

“I didn’t think anyone I knew was left,” Evfra just said, staring up at him. He was too numb to feel joy yet, much less disappointment. He just wondered when he would wake up from this silly dream which he had had too often.

Basiira took a step back, though he kept his hand on Evfra’s shoulder and the wrist of his other arm on the other, looking him up and down. Then he broke out into that deep, heartfelt laughter which Evfra had still heard in his head years after Basiira’s disappearance whenever he’d tried to cheer himself up through some dark Voeld night.

“Look at you, taoshay! What happened to the quiet farmer I married?”

“A lot, but I’m sure nothing that compares to your experience. I’m sorry I did not come sooner.”

It was a foolish thing to say, Evfra knew. Apologising made nothing right and he’d always accepted that the Resistance could not save everybody, that they’d never had the people, the resources. If he hadn’t set his goal for the best he could do instead of perfection, he’d have gone mad a year into this endeavour. It didn’t mean guilt didn’t gnaw at the back of his mind often enough, but it rarely slammed him so hard in the gut anymore as it had now.

Basiira shook his head at him. “You did come. I’m back now.”

Evfra finally managed to look around them. If every Resistance soldier and random bystander wasn’t staring at them yet, it was only because some were still busy ferrying the rest of the freed prisoners. They had the attention a whole crowd.

“We should talk in private,” Evfra ground out.

“Yes, you’re right.” Basiira frowned. “I will have to go with the rest, though. I want to see them get settled in. I took a few of them under my wing when I was first dropped in the camp and it stuck, I suppose, when others were brought there to join us.”

For the first time in years, Evfra felt tears clenching his throat shut. Of course Basiira had become a leader for these people, too. When Evfra had met him all these years ago, in that sleepy little village at the edge of civilisation which had welcomed Evfra and his younger sisters, Basiira had been the same: unelected mayor and unofficial big brother or favourite nephew to the whole place.

“You haven’t changed so much, I see,” Evfra managed hoarsely. “I will come to meet you later at your accommodations.”

Basiira squeezed his shoulder and hugged him one more time as Evfra just managed to bring shaking hands up to his back and return the gesture. He could see a worried look crossing Basiira’s face, but Evfra swallowed all the feelings threatening to overwhelm him back down. When Basiira had joined the other prisoners, he straightened his back, counted to ten in his head, and cleared his throat before he turned to his soldiers.

“Right. The Citizen’s forum needs at least two guards tonight, it will be crowded,” he said.

-

Somehow, he kept giving orders, even as people were whispering and staring at him. It helped that there was a high-pitched sound ringing in his ears, which prevented him from hearing any shreds of the gossip that no doubt spread like wildfire. For how often he had dreamt, imagined, tortured himself with the idea of meeting Basiira again, he had rather painfully failed at making it anything like those fantasies, standing there like lightning had struck him straight out of the sky.

He was in the middle of organising a guard roster he didn’t need until next week when a sharp tug at his elbow finally pulled him out of his spiralling thoughts. When he turned, he was faced with Paaran.

“Evfra, I have something to discuss.”

Evfra didn’t know if he had a mind for anything that wasn’t rote Resistance business now, but he followed her through the thinned crowd into a small, empty port control room. No one but Jaal was there.

“Sit down,” she said.

“What?”

“Just do it. You have been as pale as snow since he left, you unreasonable man.”

Evfra scowled at her, but he could feel his hands still shaking as he gripped the edge of the table and sat down on it. It annoyed him that Paaran had to set him straight, yet he could not pretend she wasn’t right. Jaal handed him a bottle of water.

“I can’t believe this. He was gone ten years,” Evfra said, staring down at it.

“It’s a miracle,” Jaal said, smiling. “We must all be allowed one occasionally.”

Evfra took a sip of the water. It seemed a bit foolhardy to hope for this to be a fairytale. Who knew if Basiira even thought of himself as his husband anymore? A decade was a long time and he’d shared the trials of his life in captivity with other people. Considering Evfra had been left for dead in the rubbles of their house, Basiira could have easily figured him long gone, anyway. It would be smart to brace himself for meeting a new partner at Basiira’s side when he went over to the Tower.

Still, Basiira was alive. It didn’t really matter if he wanted to be with Evfra anymore, though Evfra couldn’t pretend it wouldn’t hurt like getting his teeth kicked in if he didn’t. It was still infinitely more important that a man with Basiira’s good heart and head had not been lost to the kett.

“Jaal, can you go back to the headquarters and keep me updated in case anything needs my attention? Will your people be alright handling the port, Paaran?”

“Obviously,” she said brusquely. “The rest is administration, your soldiers wouldn’t be of any help.”

“You don’t have to rush back to headquarters, either. We can handle it,” Jaal answered eagerly.

Evfra felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Jaal was always so ready to share in the joy and sadness of others. It was a likable trait.

“I will go silent for a few hours. You two have my private channel in case you need me urgently.”

Evfra still couldn’t bring himself to completely go dark on Aya, but these two had been right to pull him aside. He wasn’t of any use to anyone before he got more than a brief glimpse at Basiira and could convince himself that he hadn’t just finally snapped.

-

By the time Evfra arrived at the Tower in his speeder, his nerves were tight as the guts strung along an old layri harp. It seemed like a mistake now to have let Basiira wander off to consider that short, awkward conversation on his own time.

Evfra knew what he’d meant at the port, after all: _where did the quiet farmer I married go?_ Evfra had always been taciturn with strangers and private in a way most angara weren’t. However, if he’d been more stern back then than most, that was simply his personality, not an active effort to cut others off. For his sisters, Basiira, the couple of close friends he’d had, he had gladly smiled. Also, though he’d known to defend himself, he’d not bothered much with Basiira’s village militia other than taking shifts alone or alongside Basiira scouting the perimeter. The battlefield had never seemed like his calling and leading people even less so. When it came to giving orders and pulling forces together, be it to prepare a feast or organise a troop, he’d always just been Basiira’s shadow. ‘This is like herding adhi. You do it, I’ll go make myself useful some other way,’ Evfra had always said to him.

Still, to Evfra, what had led him from that point to here was a logical development. He had experienced himself changing over ten years, had forged himself in the fire until he’d become what he needed to be. Basiira had only that image of him before the attack and Evfra could easily imagine that the hard-eyed, surly commander that Basiira had met at the port was a stranger to him. Who knew how he had taken it? And even if Evfra had managed to open his damned mouth, could he truly have convinced Basiira that he was the man Basiira had married? Evfra couldn’t even tell how much of that person was left.

He didn’t have to look far for Basiira. He stood at the centre of a group of thirty or so people in the entrance hall, talking animatedly at them. They had all been provided proper clothing now. As Basiira’s gaze swerved to take in his whole audience, he caught sight of Evfra in the doorway and stopped. The hiccup in his sentence was barely noticeable, but Evfra still knew him well enough to hear it.

Basiira waved at the men and women to turn around as he strode towards him.

“Here! This Evfra de Tershaav. He’s the leader of the Resistance. We’ve heard about him on the ships.”

They took him in with interest, but Evfra wasn’t sure whether they knew who he was to Basiira or if they simply had seen Evfra was calling the shots. He almost had to smile. Basiira had that talent to make it seem like he could produce everyone worth having around, so it would hardly be odd for the others to think he’d summoned the leader of the Resistance here for their benefit. It felt good to see the kett hadn’t taken this confidence from him. Basiira didn’t have the talents of a politician, not precisely, though one might have made use of them for a stellar career in that field; yet Basiira’s role had never been that defined and Evfra doubted he’d ever wanted it to be. Evfra used to think, when new at the village, that Basiira seemed like a chieftain of sort, even if such things hadn’t existed since long before either of them were born.

“Ask any of the soldiers around if you need help,” Evfra said, pressed by the group’s attention to speak, and falling back on easy, authoritative words. “They are all with one Resistance now, so it can get back to me. Paaran Shie, the mayor, is working on finding your family connections. My people will see to it that you can go back to your homes as quickly as possible, if possible.”

“Very good,” Basiira said. “Evfra, I want to introduce you to some people...”

There were ten or so in this batch that Basiira pointed out. Evfra tried very hard to remember their names and place them to the right faces. He wanted desperately to know every detail of Basiira’s past that he had missed, right now and all at once, even though he knew that was unrealistic, just to prove to Basiira he could still be relevant in his life.

He greeted each person by name when Basiira had finished, like a new child in front of a class, to commit them to memory, jotting them down with some detail in his mind: the short one who had scouted the mines, the engineer with a mouth who had all the whip scars and too much knowledge to be discarded, and so on.

He waited for Basiira to tell them he was his husband, then, but Basiira only excused himself from the others as he walked away with Evfra.

“You’ve gotten used to giving speeches, I see,” Basiira said with amusement in his voice.

Evfra snorted.

“Necessity. I’m not very inspiring. I know how to make people want to fight and keep fighting. It’s better I leave peace time talk to others.”

Someone with more tact may not have mentioned in their first address that some might not have families to go back to, for example. Evfra had never seen the point in lying because he’d never liked to be lied to, but he also knew others bumped painfully into his edges that had only become harder over the years. He didn’t want to deliberately hurt anyone, so usually he excused himself from these types of conversations.

“You must have gotten very good at the other sort of speech, though. I remember what the resistance – resistances – were like when I was still on Voeld. I admit it was surreal to be hauled onto Resistance ships by soldiers in armour with proper weapons. I wouldn’t have expected anybody to be able to turn them into something useful or even get them proper requisitions,” Basiira said thoughtfully as he watched a couple of soldiers hurry past them through the doors.

“Well, it has been ten years. I had time.”

“That’s not much, considering. Of course, that decade ran together for me after a while, even if it was also the longest one I remember. It’s hard for me to gauge that time on a normal scale.”

Evfra halted in the doorway, suppressing a shiver at the thought of what his husband had lived through.

“Will you come home with me to talk?” he asked, hearing his own voice drained of all feeling as he tried not to let his fear and guilt shine through, and as a result sounding much too curt.

“Of course.”

-

The ride was short and Basiira didn’t speak much, instead watching the streets of Aya go by and sometimes Evfra’s face. Whenever Evfra caught him, he only smiled. Evfra had trouble keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.

He led Basiira up the stairs in the inner city apartment building where he lived and punched in the code at the door to let them in. Basiira followed and Evfra noticed that he held his cut-off wrist with his remaining hand behind his back. Though he’d had his other hand, then, the simple gesture was so familiar that Evfra had trouble not to stare at him again. He still remembered looking at Basiira from behind many times, smiling at the back of his head as he watched his husband pull a crowd with his gregarious manner and loud laugh, standing just like this.

“This place is nice, but empty. Did you just move in?” Basiira asked.

Evfra shook his head. Basiira was right: there was a table with a few chairs, a sofa with a box next to it that still held nothing, a shelf cluttered with datapads, the kitchen with a stack of food paste tubs, and the open door to the bedroom where all his clothes were stuffed in a crate next to his bed.

“I’ve lived in this place since I came to Aya, but I basically only go here to sleep. I often thought I should free it up for someone else to live in and just take a spare room at the headquarters. Now that the aliens have managed to reactivate the vaults, though, and the kett are on the backfoot, the drive to get to Aya has lessened.”

“I heard about that. You miss ten years and the whole galaxy changes!” Basiira said, chuckling. “I remember you used to have all these knick-knacks in our old house. The ancient farming tools you were always fixing and the seeds and your sisters’ old toys. What a difference.”

Evfra wasn’t sure whether that was just referring to how he kept his house and doubted it. He gestured towards a chair.

“Do you want something to drink? To eat?”

“No, I’ve had that. I want to talk to you,” Basiira said.

“Yes, of course.”

Swallowing, Evfra sat down. The white, rounded edge of the table was between them. 

“There’s one question I have. Just to – know our options,” Evfra said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“What is that?”

“Was any one of the people I just met your lover? Is someone else? I’m not trying to accuse you. I’d understand,” Evfra clarified.

Basiira inclined his head. “No, I’m not with anyone. There was a man,” he added, and Evfra’s heart, which had lifted, was tugged back down into the bottom of his stomach within a second. “I don’t know that I was in love with him, but I liked him a lot. Ovuum... it didn’t go further than a few kisses. I never saw your corpse, I couldn’t be sure. It was hard to forget that. Ovuum died rather soon after we got closer, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Evfra said honestly, wondering how things might have turned out had Ovuum stayed alive. “I saw the conditions you were kept under. Seems the least you should have had was someone to share the burden.”

“I made good friends. I wasn’t lonely,” Basiira assured him. “When reinforcements stopped coming, we were almost like a little colony down there. It was really not so different from our village, considering how isolated it was.”

“But you were under the thumb of the kett.”

“Only more so than we already were before. The angara haven’t been free in our lifetime.”

Evfra just nodded his head. Whatever Basiira and the others had told themselves to make their time bearable, he would not start trying to disprove it.

“Fair is fair. What about you, Evfra?”

“No one,” Evfra said.

Basiira smiled, though he did not look truly happy. “Not even tempted? Not even for sex?” he asked, confused. “You had much better reason than I did to believe me dead.”

Evfra shrugged. “I was too busy for trysts and you know I was never much for romance. Can’t expect another man to spend as much time and patience as you did to draw me out. It was probably one of your more out-there ideas, too.”

Basiira chuckled. “I stand behind it,” he said. “Though I do believe you that you had no time considering what else you were up to. How _did_ you do it? I could barely keep a militia of forty people together.”

“That’s a story for several evenings. The short version is that I came to in the rubbles of our village and everybody was gone or dead.” He lowered his eyes. “At first, I thought I had a chance to get you back. When it became clear you weren’t anywhere in my reach, I considered joining you. However, I couldn’t let the kett beat me without a fight. I’d already drummed up a little support, too, and suddenly those people were looking to me. So I figured if I had nothing to lose, why not? Took me half the decade to get the Resistance off Voeld in the first place. Lots of inglorious crawling in the trenches and infighting. When I’d more or less united Voeld, Aya and Havarl started to pay attention and I got the support of some of the greater families. Still, it has only been like this for five years.”

“Considering how many decades our people couldn’t manage to have any united military, it still seems a short time to me, all in all,” Basiira answered.

Evfra frowned. Basiira wasn’t wrong, but, being on the ground, you only ever saw the things that moved too slowly.

“That’s my story. What about you?”

Involuntarily, his gaze strayed to Basiira’s missing eye.

“Not quite as exciting, I’m afraid.” Basiira cleared his throat. There was a heavy sadness upon him even as he smiled. “I worked the mines for minerals, sometimes the factories. It felt like we’d been forgotten, minded mostly by the prison itself. Sometimes, I feared they’d simply stop feeding us and just let us die a slow death when they were done with us. I wished we’d been more central, more important, even though I’m aware we probably would have died sooner, then. The silence could just be so deafening.” He sighed. “There was no way out, though – we checked often, but even if we had found one, where would we have gone on Eos? The radiation would have killed us. There were a few scuffles with the kett guards, too, of course. We weren’t totally obedient. That’s how I lost my eye to a gunshot. I was lucky on that count. It could have easily blown half my skull off, but it strafed me at an angle. Oh, and the hand ended up down a shaft. That was just an accident with a machine I was working with.”

In the interest of not making this about himself, Evfra bit his tongue to stop the hundreds of apologies he wanted to give.

“I can’t imagine, but I think would have gone mad,” Evfra said, instead. “I commend you and the others for making it through that.”

“You get used to everything. I don’t think you could drag me back now, though. I wouldn’t be able to do it twice.”

It was the fear in Basiira’s voice that left Evfra reaching out before he could think, placing a hand over the shortened stump of his arm which laid on the table, holding on to it as if he could keep him here, safe on Aya, through sheer force of will.

Basiira put his hand in the back of Evfra’s head and pulled him in for a kiss. The corner of the table dug uncomfortably into his stomach and the surprise left him stiff, but Evfra at least managed to wrap his arm around Basiira’s broad shoulders, dragging himself in. 

When Basiira broke the kiss, Evfra’s heart thundered in his chest. He leaned back abruptly, pressing his lips together. He was tired and overwhelmed and it was all he could do not to cry into his husband’s shoulder – after he had survived a decade of torture at the hands of the kett. No, he would not do it.

“Would you like to stay the night?” Evfra asked. “Just in this place...”

He did not want to pressure him, he just wanted to be able to look through the open door from the sofa and see Basiira sleep soundly in his bed.

“I do,” Basiira said hesitantly, “but we agreed to stay around each other for a little bit, me and the others – there are some who were already unstable. I’m worried the change will hurt. I should be there for them to talk to me for the first night, at least.”

“Oh. Of course.” Evfra made sure the answer came out straight and without quiver, as Basiira deserved. The disappointment tasted bitter on his tongue, but warmth still filled his chest. Basiira was still looking out for others even when he himself had been put through the worst. “I should take you back, then.”

“Right. Yes.”

Basiira looked expectant somehow, but Evfra had no idea what he wanted from him and so he just held his gaze for a moment before getting up.

-

“There’s nothing like ten years in chains to keep your hubris in check.”

Evfra looked up at Basiira, who did not open the speeder’s door when Evfra had parked before the Tower, but instead spoke the words towards the window. When he saw Evfra’s confused glance, he smiled at him.

“What do you mean?” Evfra asked.

“You know, I always blamed myself for not saving our home.”

“They razed the whole village. There was nothing you could have done,” Evfra said.

It was true Basiira had been the best shot there and a more capable warrior than Evfra himself, but none of them had even been soldiers, in the end. Besides, one good fighter could not turn a war around like in the legends. Reality played by stricter rules. 

“I know. It’s a stupid thought. Haven’t you had it, though?”

“Yes,” Evfra admitted, “of course.”

“I’m sure we all did in our own ways. None of the rest of you had played man-in-charge as much as I did, though,” Basiira said with a humourless smile. “I’ve been shown my limits, or perhaps wisdom came with age. But it’s interesting to see that of all the people that I thought I was protecting, you ended up needing me least of all. You probably never did, did you?”

“I...” Evfra paused, unsure. “What do you mean?”

Basiira sat quiet for a moment, then shook his head.

“Nothing, I suppose. I guess I just never fully got our first meeting out of my head. You, half-frozen, clutching that blanket like a shield and with that defiant stare...” Basiira chuckled. “I was sure you would be fine without me, but that only made me want to help more. I didn’t want you to have to struggle so much just because you could probably somehow push through.”

Evfra knew exactly what Basiira was speaking of: that freezing night eighteen years ago, when he had first come to the village with his half-grown sisters hanging off his hands, with no family left after the death of their true mother. Basiira had been the one called on to judge whether they could stay. Evfra, cold and growing desperate, had expected suspicion from the closed community and been ready to do whatever he needed to disperse it for his sisters’ sake. Instead, Basiira had given his sisters hot fruit juice and spoken to Evfra only after he had wrapped himself in the blanket Basiira had handed him.

“You always had a heart for rowdy strays,” Evfra said fondly.

“One wonders how much good I did for this one when he built a whole military for our people when I let him go.” Basiira opened the door. “Don’t let me ramble. I should head back. Good night, Evfra.”

He brushed his fingers over Evfra’s cheek before he got out of the speeder, walking with long steps towards the Tower. Evfra ended up staring after him, unsure if he’d been complimented, with an ill feeling in the pit of his stomach.

-

When Evfra made it into the headquarters the next morning, he was four upper pills into a day that felt too bright at the fringes. Sleep had barely come last night as he turned his husband’s words in his head, wondering if after these eighteen years, he had been gently but firmly sent back out there into the snowy wastes on his own.

Jaal looked at him with bright expectation, though he just managed to hold back his questions until Evfra had gotten situated at his station and cleared the most urgent messages.

“How did it go?”

“Fine,” Evfra said vaguely

“Just fine?” Jaal asked with disbelief.

Evfra looked up at him, ready to make a scathing remark that would end the conversation, but in the face of Jaal’s honest concern and with his own flagging energy, even he could not muster the venom. Jaal was young still, he reminded himself. Twenty-seven, just a year older than Evfra had been when he’d gotten married to Basiira fourteen years ago. He tried to remember himself at that age, which seemed a lifetime ago. Had he ever been that earnestly optimistic? He doubted it, but perhaps he’d wished to be, for he’d always had a lot of patience for Jaal.

“Ten years is a long time,” he just said. “We’re not the same people anymore. Though I suppose, oddly enough, I am much less the person I used to be than he is. You’d think it would be the other way around.”

“So are you not in love with him anymore?” Jaal pushed quietly.

“No,” Evfra said, discarding the idea without a thought. It couldn’t even be entertained. He felt like a love-struck youth still when he looked at Basiira. “We just didn’t have that much time yet,” he added, though he knew that while it wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t the whole truth, either. “He already has responsibilities again. That’s what he’s like. When you put him in a room full of people, suddenly a bunch of them will follow after him like baby birds.”

Jaal laughed and Evfra threw him a questioning glance.

“Nothing,” Jaal said, still smiling. “I can hear you love him still.”

Evfra lifted his chin, a little embarrassed and mostly annoyed. He’d not meant to be gushing in front of Jaal.

“If you love each other, it will be fine,” Jaal said with an entirely unfounded confidence that was almost difficult not to admire. “You should go to him. I know you are both busy, but you have earned this.”

“I don’t plan not to. I have some work to do here, though.” He gave Jaal a sideways glance. “Your shore leave is not endless. Go, I’m sure there are enough other people waiting to talk to you, too.”

-

Evfra found his husband not at the Tower, but, after grabbing a soldier from the site and questioning her, on the outskirts of Aya, were some of the freed angara were settled into more permanent housing. Evfra suspected those were the people who didn’t have anyone to return to. Basiira was in the company of two city administrators, easily identified by their light-blue uniforms, who listened to him with rapt attention as they walked between the apartment blocks and a big stack of opened crates with basic articles such as clothing, food, and furniture parts that would have to be assembled.

Instead of interrupting, Evfra settled on the hood of his speeder as he watched them, amused by how it seemed like the administrators were with Basiira instead of the other way around. He always managed to turn situations around like that somehow. Like so many, Evfra had fallen for Basiira’s charm. Why Basiira had paid him special attention, on the other hand, he couldn’t say, since he’d just been a recalcitrant stranger with some useful knowledge of mushroom farming and a penchant for getting his hands dirty. The latter they had always shared, though, and likely it had been the days and nights spent fixing houses around the village, tinkering with the old, failing heating systems, distributing food rations, and scouting the perimeter for kett and wild animals that had bit by bit brought them closer.

Evfra had just gotten comfortable when one of the administrators spotted him and stood to attention. He pushed off the speeder when Basiira approached.

“Don’t worry. If you’re needed, I can wait,” Evfra said.

“I always have a moment for you,” Basiira said. “How are you?”

“Alright,” Evfra said, hoping the three days without sleep weren’t showing on his face yet. “Was your night long?”

“Somewhat,” Basiira admitted. “It seems where some people could deal with the certainty of being imprisoned, freedom has become too much to handle. Besides, in a kett camp, you have no choice but to keep it together. Now the pieces fall apart.”

“What about you?”

Basiira looked thoughtful. “I think I would find it harder if there was nothing for me to do,” he said and smiled. “Luckily, there’s always another task waiting.”

Evfra nodded his head. In that, they had always been similar, too. “Tell me if you need anything for you or your people.”

“Of course. Though – I wonder, do you usually offer yourself?”

“The Resistance is always there to help. People know that. Why?”

“The Resistance, yes. I’ve read the pamphlets. You watch over the three planets.” Basiira smiled, though there was a searching gaze in his remaining eye. “But people seem to find _you_ as a person less approachable. I think some of them are downright afraid of you.”

“I’m a commander. They’re not supposed to think of me as a social worker. It’s not helpful.” He raised a brow. “I tried to lead like you do at the start, but I don’t have the people skills.”

“Very kind of you,” Basiira noted, chuckling. “I understand you had to be harder. It is a military. Still...” He shook his head. “People tell me that you are cut off from everyone. They hardly even know your history, other than that your losses were great.”

“I have to be fine with my soldiers dying under me, because of my orders, Basiira. What can I do? It’s not easy to send friends to the slaughter. It’s not even easy now.”

“Not everybody is in the Resistance.”

Evfra just made a vague noise, crossing his arms over his chest.

A hand settled in the back of his neck.

“Evfra...”

“Oh, not that tone. I’m not your little cousin,” Evfra muttered.

“I’m worried about you. You always drew back too quickly. This is not good.”

“About _me_?” Evfra snorted. “I’m not the one who spent a decade – I’m alright.”

Basiira took a deep breath that, wordlessly, still betrayed his frustration in the slow exhale. Evfra cursed himself. He felt like the biggest idiot on the planet that he was apparently so broken that a man like Basiira, who should have focused on his own wounds, felt he needed to fix him instead.

“I’m alright,” he repeated.

“If you say so.”

Of course it was not the first time they had fought. They’d been married four years, together six, had known each other eight – it would happen. Back then, however, Evfra had never feared these confrontations, just like you wouldn’t worry about a small snow storm in winter. Today, he couldn’t judge whether it was going to turn into an avalanche.

Silence stretched between them. Evfra racked his brain for another topic of conversation and remembered something as his gaze happened to fall on Basiira’s missing hand.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you to visit the doctor at the Resistance headquarters at some point. His name is Olvek. He could help you get a prosthesis for your hand and your eye. He’s very skilled with these sorts of procedures,” he said.

“I will talk to him,” Basiira answered and Evfra was glad he was willing to entertain him. “However, I don’t think I want the eye replaced at this point. After nine years, you get used to the different depth perception and blind spot. It would just be confusing now.”

Somehow, Evfra almost flinched. How could he have known that Basiira had lost the eye so long ago? Yet it felt like he should have. He was sure every single former prisoner in those houses over there did.

_I’ve missed so much._

“Of course.” Evfra gestured towards the apartments. “I am probably keeping you from this. The mayor asked me to a meeting, too. I will come back tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it,” Basiira said and though he opened his mouth again after that, he closed it without speaking and only gave him a polite nod.

-

They were both careful the next days, speaking about the work they did and not much more. It seemed neither of them wanted another confrontation, but they also did not know which mines laid under their feet. It was still enjoyable; just talking to Basiira again, hearing his voice, his laugh, feeling his gentle touch on his hands and arms and shoulders. Evfra had always liked watching Basiira interact with others, too, privately smiling at how quickly he wrapped them around his fingers, and now there was the added satisfaction of seeing him back in civilisation, torn from the grasp of the kett.

Maybe it had to be this way, Evfra told himself. This could be good. They didn’t have to rush into this, did they? In truth, however, it didn’t seem to him like it was building to anything – it felt like treading water instead of a careful approach.

Evfra broke on the fourth evening of this. When he came home, he headed straight for the kitchen to liberate a bottle of bitter tavum some official had gifted him months ago from the cupboard. Without bothering to heat it, he downed a mouthful before he’d even sat down on the couch. He didn’t sleep and he spent all his time making plans about how to approach Basiira and have another real conversation and if the alcohol would help him with the former or let him forget about the latter for a while, it would have done its job.

He had made his way through half of the bottle when the doorbell rang. Evfra groaned. He should have known better than to figure the evening would stay quiet, even if the day at headquarters had been frighteningly uneventful. There was always some emergency, even now that they were chasing the kett for once. But why wouldn’t they just message him on his multitool?

When he glanced at the screen of the security cam, he saw his husband standing in front of the entrance door downstairs.

Evfra suppressed the urge to punch the wall to hurt himself in some way for his stupid decision to drink tonight. They had seen each other earlier that day, which, of course, didn’t mean they could not do so again, but so far they had only stuck to their stiff afternoon meetings. If he’d known that Basiira would visit, he wouldn’t have broken out the alcohol. Though he did, in fact, feel a lot more sober than he had wanted to be at this point and had, until just now, cursed his high tolerance, the sharp smell of tavum in the apartment was rather unmistakable. Still, what could he do? He wouldn’t leave Basiira standing on his doorstep.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Evfra said, stepping inside to let Basiira enter.

His husband’s gaze swept through the room, then rested on the bottle. 

There was a brief pause. Evfra wondered if Basiira considered simply overlooking it for the sake of peace.

“Is everything alright?” Basiira asked, instead.

“Yes,” Evfra murmured, “don’t worry. Despite all my unfortunate new traits, I’m not a drunk. It’s an exception.”

It was not the right answer, Evfra knew. A better one would have made light of it. He could have innocently offered Basiira a cup, hidden that he’d had half of the bottle this evening, and it would have seemed like he was just unwinding after a long day – he was an adult man, after all, he could have a drink. However, he was too tired to lie to Basiira of all people, who so easily saw through him.

Instead of an answer, Basiira pulled Evfra into his arms. The hug was not like the light ones they had shared up to now; it crushed Evfra sideways into Basiira’s chest, holding him tightly enough to squeeze the air out of his lungs. Evfra wrapped his hand around his arm, clutched it against himself. It felt better than anything had in years.

Basiira pressed their mouths together and this time, Evfra’s brain engaged quickly enough. He lifted his hands to cup Basiira’s face and held it as he opened his mouth, kissed him deeply, slowly. When it ended, he realised he’d finally failed to hold back the tears that had been threatening to escape him for days. Angrily, he wiped them away with the back of his hand. Basiira watched him closely.

“I missed you,” he said gently.

“This? Was I as pathetic when we were last together?” Evfra asked flatly. “I missed you, too.”

“You were exactly this stroppy,” Basiira answered, raising his brows.

Evfra rolled his eyes and pulled Basiira closer again, but Basiira kept this kiss short. He reached into a pouch hanging off his hip. With the rofjinn covering it, Evfra had not noticed it.

“I have something for you,” he said. “I figured – for old time’s sake.”

Out of the pouch, he produced a dried blossom, a broad-leaved, blue sort, and placed it in Evfra’s hand.

“They’re more difficult to come by here,” Basiira said. “I could have brought you cut flowers, but this seemed more fitting.”

Evfra, who had just managed to swallow the tears, felt fresh ones well up and fracture his vision. On Voeld, decorative flowers were usually dried, since they could be tricky to come by fresh. What had started out as a necessity had become a separate tradition of dried blossoms given away as tokens of appreciation.

“The... the box that I kept your gifts in was buried in the rubble.” It had gotten pretty full towards the end. Evfra used to call Basiira sappy for bringing him flowers so often, but he’d not thrown a single one away. “I never did find it. I stopped digging when I’d tallied all the corpses. I always regretted it later.”

Basiira leaned their foreheads together. His face was too close to read in detail, but Evfra saw it twist with pain. They had never gotten to grieve together for their lost family or their home, though he was sure they had each done it in their own way. However, Basiira smiled again as he leaned back.

“You need to fill this barren place with something. How about a new box?” Basiira said.

“Would be a start.”

Carefully, Evfra put the flower down on the edge of the sofa and then sat down himself. Basiira followed his example and Evfra leaned in again. He remembered exactly how Basiira kissed, with a single-minded devotion that had always left him craving more, and even though he just had one hand with which to tug Evfra closer now, the embrace of his other arm was still no less urgent.

Evfra mapped his head with his fingers, remembered as he felt it the exact way the folds of skin ran down his neck to his shoulders, the way he always tightened his embrace around him when Evfra put his hands on his chest, and that he liked nipping at his lips with a little painful edge.

Evfra brought his leg over Basiira’s thighs. He was aroused, almost feverish, and uncomfortably hard against the fabric of his trousers. Straddling Basiira’s lap, he could feel the same was true for his husband.

Basiira interrupted their kisses to glance at the bottle. “How much did you...”

“Not so much that I don’t know what I want. You know I don’t get drunk quickly,” Evfra said.

“Despite the fact that you barely ever drank,” Basiira said and then laughed. “Listen to me! I sound melancholic when you’re right here.”

He kissed Evfra’s throat and while he did, Evfra reached over to blindly paw open the crate that stood by the sofa. He knew there was a flask of seed oil in there to mix under the food paste, since he’d dumped his latest batch of requisitions in the box just a few days ago. When he had found it, he abandoned the flask on the couch and stood for a moment, allowing Basiira to hold his hand as he struggled ungracefully out of his trousers, kicked off his shoes, pulled off his underwear. Patience might come another night if he was lucky enough to get one. Thankfully, Basiira seemed happy not to have to wait, only pushed his own trousers down as far as needed to and took his cock in hand, running his fingers slowly up and down its hard length as he watched Evfra stand half-undressed before him.

Evfra could only just convince himself to bother with the oil, knowing they couldn’t go as deep, as fast as he wanted to without it. However, Basiira’s hand joined his on the flask, took it from him to spill it over his own hand instead. He pushed a slippery finger inside Evfra as he pulled him back into his lap. The sudden stretch made Evfra twitch. He twisted against his finger, impatient and irrational, in a way he did not usually get to be anymore with the weight of three planets on his shoulders. Basiira smiled, but only gave in after Evfra plied him with open-mouthed kisses, pulling his finger out.

Evfra forced himself down on Basiira’s cock as soon as he could, taking him with one quick motion. It hurt, but he welcomed it. He wanted to feel him inside of himself in any way possible. However, Basiira’s hand and shortened arm were on his hips, then, preventing him from slamming himself down twice, taking just enough of the haste out of the movement that he could look Basiira in the face as he sank down again instead of screwing his eyes shut. He heard his own rapid breathing as he wrapped his arms around Basiira’s neck.

Basiira’s hand was now wrapped around his cock and Evfra was greedily holding Basiira to himself. It did not feel so much like he was building to an orgasm, but as if something on fire was stuck inside his belly and white hot, on its way to incinerate itself and him. The explosion burned through him too quickly, but he kept moving on Basiira, his lust hardly sated. Basiira, who had always been the louder one of the too, moaned his name when he came, a breathless chant. Evfra kissed it from his lips. 

They sat in silence for a while. Evfra made sure the flower was still on the sofa. Basiira stroked the back of his neck.

“Can you stay tonight?”

Asking again felt a lot like begging, but for once, Evfra could not be bothered to care for all his pride.

“Yes,” Basiira said.

Evfra took a deep breath. He could smell the sweat on Basiira’s damp skin and the dried flower, too. As he leaned his chin on Basiira’s shoulder, the apartment he had lived in for five years felt a little like home for the first time.

-

They spent the night together in his bed and the few times Evfra startled awake from the foreign feeling of a moving body beside him, he had to check with himself that he wasn’t dreaming. Basiira smiled at him when Evfra curled too possessively around him sometime after midnight, but he didn’t complain, and Evfra slept for longer than a few minutes at a time for the first time in a week.

Basiira left in the morning and Evfra walked to the headquarters on clouds. He had just cleared the backlog of messages that awaited him whenever he didn’t work at night and was instructing his communications team when Basiira came through the door. Evfra had quietly ordered clearance for him the day he had arrived, trying to make himself accessible if Basiira only wanted it, but so far he hadn’t come here. With his broad smile and self-assured, determined stride, he greeted the guards and technicians around Evfra as if this was the hundredth time he had strolled into the building.

“Basiira,” Evfra greeted him, trying to hide the flutter of excitement that Basiira had come back to him so quickly after their night. “Give me a moment.”

“Take your time.”

Evfra turned back to the communications desk. “Finally, Havarl. I need more frequent reports on the raids in the south, but don’t compromise the teams. I don’t mind if they only-”

He stopped himself. The three communication techs looking at him stared with just as much surprise on their faces as Evfra was sure was mirrored in his. Basiira had rounded the room to step right up behind him and looped his arms around Evfra’s middle.

It was not unusual for lovers and spouses to show affection to each other like this and even Evfra allowed it among his soldiers as long as it did not impede their tasks. The Nexus species found it unusual, Evfra knew, but angara did not restrict their emotions just because they were at work.

Of course, the same had never been true for Evfra. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would dare give him a pat on the shoulder.

On the other hand, the story of his returned husband had long made the rounds through the Resistance, so Evfra figured he wouldn’t have to explain who the fearless stranger was. He didn’t feel like pushing Basiira off, either. If he lost him again, he’d break, anyway. He realised in one shuddering, terrifying moment that there was no point in trying to build that wall.

“They don’t have to send anything but distress signals from the field,” he continued instead. “Keeping them safe is the highest priority. Still, we need to be informed afterwards.”

He looked his technicians in the eye as if daring them to make a comment, but they only gave hasty nods before they turned back to their consoles.

“Aren’t you busy with the other returnees today?” Evfra asked Basiira.

“Most of them have been brought back to Havarl and Voeld now. I’ll still check in with those who have nowhere to go,” Basiira said, thumb brushing over Evfra’s hipbone. “I will soon have a lot more time, though. In fact, I wondered if I shouldn’t join our new defence forces. I may be rusty, but I think with a little training I should be able to help out somehow.”

Though his tone was light, Evfra could see he meant it. It was not a bad idea, technically. With his charisma, he could have easily handled a platoon, and he’d been a competent fighter back in the day. However, the idea of sending Basiira into the fray made Evfra’s blood freeze.

“Before I promise you any job, I should check if you meet the basic requirements,” he said, evading the question.

“What are those?”

“For a normal recruit, seventeen years and a heartbeat. For a higher position, though, I’d like to see you handling a gun.”

-

They used to have little competitions back in the day, mostly with bow and arrow, trying not to waste ammo. However, whenever they had been out together making sure hostile wildlife didn’t get too close to the village, they would also compare their techniques with firearms.

As they stood at the shooting range now, Evfra found that Basiira still had the upper hand. It seemed he never missed a shot at the beat-up targets that moved back- and forward and from side to side. Evfra liked to get a good shot in between the eyes when possible, but usually gave up on such detail work. He sprayed the body with his assault rifle and tore it up to the head if he was quick enough.

“You got better,” Basiira noted as he lowered the pistol.

“Still not as good as you. Twenty-nine headshots against eighteen and I doubt you had much chance to practice lately. Impressive.” Evfra shook his head. “Guess I shouldn’t stop relying on my Firaan anytime soon.”

“Are you using that against the kett?” Basiira asked, eyes widening. “It was dangerous with the snow adhi!”

“Our people have relied on it for centuries. It works well enough if you have passable reflexes and enough control over your electric field to make a shield.”

Basiira took aim again, fired another shot through a dummy’s forehead.

“I did see one of your fights when you got us out. You definitely grew into the role of soldier, so I will have to defer to you on that.” He lowered the gun. “I didn’t realise the person I noticed was you at the time, I just saw you seemed to be commanding the others. One of your people pointed you out to us as she ushered us onto the ship, though. She said ‘that’s Evfra’.” He frowned. “The flight seemed to take an eternity after that.”

Evfra placed his assault rifle back on the rack. His name was indeed not a common one, as Basiira had already said at the port.

“I wish I could have spared you that uncertainty, at least, but the kett hadn’t even bothered to keep lists of your names. They only had places of origin listed.” He hesitated, but figured if there was a time to ask, it was now. “Do the others from the camps know I’m your husband? You didn’t tell your acquaintances when I met them here. Did you speak to them on the ship about this Evfra?”

Basiira laughed, placing the pistol back on the rack, too. “Evfra, I told them of my husband for ten years. Of course they knew who you are – I’m sure they were sick of you before they ever met you, thanks to me.” He shook his head. “In fact, several people came to speak to _me_ on the flight back when they heard the name from the Resistance soldiers. I would have happily introduced you again as my husband, I just didn’t know that evening whether we were still married. I had been missing for ten years. For all I knew, you had a new husband. I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

Hearing his own thoughts thrown back at him, Evfra wondered why reason had not told him as much. He’d been just as hesitant to treat Basiira like his husband for the same reason.

“I understand.”

“I think most of my friends are only shocked I am living the fantasy. My husband, who I had reason to believe was mostly likely dead, instead went to war and rescued me guns blazing. On the way, he forced a military into existence to protect the entirety of our people. That’s the sort of idea you nurse on your fourth year in the mines so you don’t throw yourself into a chasm, not reality.”

“Only it took me ten years to get to you. Some hero I am.” Evfra took a deep breath. “I must apologise. You don’t have to answer or forgive me. I just need you to know that I am sorry,” he added. “I tore through several forced labour camps back on Voeld after you were taken with whatever soldiers I managed to grab, but when it became obvious I could not find you or any of the others close-by, I shifted my focus. I’d met so many others who were suffering then...”

Realistically, there was nothing he could have done. How could he have ever happened upon Eos as the place where his family was? The planet had barely been on their radar, unliveable as it was, and even if it had been Evfra hadn’t had the resources to take the fight to the kett in a place where the angara had no presence on the ground at all. He hadn’t had the manpower or the systematic support back then to even get off Voeld with a sizeable number of soldiers. And yet, it felt like a failure.

“Ten years in which you built what you needed to get to me,” Basiira corrected. He considered Evfra with a long look. “Is this what stands between us?”

Evfra opened his mouth, closed it. “I know better,” he said. “I should know better.”

Basiira’s shoulders rose and sank with a deep breath.

“I always wished I had saved you, too,” he said. “All of our family, the village... I was not the protector I thought I was. Still, the two of us are here. That’s a victory.”

“It is,” Evfra said. “And you were our protector. You did as much as anyone could.”

After all, Evfra still remembered seeing flashes of Basiira fighting kett four to one through the wall of flames that had divided them in the end, lashing out at their attackers with the mad strength of one who didn’t care if he lost his life.

“And you did more. You’ve achieved so much... I guess I just came stumbling out of that mine and wasn’t quite sure where I fit in anymore. It’s been so long that I’ve even been in proper society. I’m glad that you went on without me. I wish you’d gone a little further, considering how lonely you seem to be.”

Evfra frowned at him, but allowed his husband to keep talking.

“When I watched you here, asked around about you, it simply made me wonder whether you had any need of me at all anymore – if you ever did.”

It had continuously been one of his husband’s slightly vexing and very lovable features that he always wanted to help out. Evfra used to tease him for it, would say Basiira wouldn’t have fallen for Evfra if not for how he was able to coddle him on the first night they’d met, or that day when Evfra had broken his ankle stumbling over a rock in the fields and Basiira had carried him to the doctor, or when had fallen sick with Mavash Fever and Basiira had gone against all decorum to spend all his free time by his bedside.

He wanted to be a protector, just like he’d said. Who wouldn’t be shaken if their identity were ripped from them in the span of one terrible night?

Evfra stepped closer to him.

“I was able to do without you just as you managed without me. You know that doesn’t mean that my life would not be infinitely better with you.”

Words were not always his strength when it came to emotions, but he leaned his forehead against tall Basiira’s chest and allowed himself to be enveloped in his embrace.

“You’re right. I need to apologise, too,” Basiira said quietly. “Don’t think I’m not proud of you.”

“No, don’t. I don’t want apologies from you, I understand. I just want to know if you’ll still be my husband.”

“There was never any doubt of that,” Basiira said, looking down at him.

Evfra had long forgotten how to show joy like an angara should have, but he nuzzled against Basiira’s chest and that got the point across just as well.

However, there was one more point that worried him.

“About the Resistance.” Evfra glanced aside. “I can try to place you...”

“But you don’t want to,” Basiira said, regarding him curiously.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’d be an asset, I just couldn’t treat you fairly. I told you, I have to be able to send every soldier to their death if necessary.” He shook his head, frowning. “I feel like I’m already failing at it with some others, to be honest. It’s hard to look at soldiers who have fought with you for years as expendable. I’m still able to act as their commander, but I don’t think I could do it for you.”

He had to be that honest with himself, with his husband. Basiira nodded his head.

“I understand that. As angry as I am about the kett, I don’t need to be in frontline combat. In truth, it’s been a long while since I carried a gun. I never really fought the kett in greater numbers, either. And...” He hesitated, his smile somewhat strained. “I’m fine as it is – a medic checked us –, but after ten years in the mines, I can’t promise my body would hold up.”

Evfra nodded his head, making sure not to wince as he wanted to, feeling the weight of guilt again. Angara already talked little about their health and Basiira had always been proud on top of it. Evfra didn’t want his husband to be quiet when it came to such matters. He was sure that over time, repercussions of the decade spent in the camps would turn up, both in body and mind. He wanted to be there to help Basiira with all of them.

“I can certainly find a role for you on Aya. Several if you’re bored. We’re always short-staffed.” He raised his gaze to meet his. “I should point out that you don’t have to work if it’s for money, of course. If you’d like to recuperate instead, or just feel like you’ve had your fill of work after ten years in the mines, I would be glad to support you. Knowing you, though, that offer is probably made in vain.”

“You’re right, it is.” Basiira grinned. “But thank you, anyway. I need to keep busy, you know me. Besides, if I did not work here, then how would I get to see the faces your subordinates make when I hug you?”

Evfra couldn’t keep himself from laughing as Basiira pulled him into another kiss.

-

Seeing Evfra’s husband steal a kiss from him did become a somewhat more common sight around the headquarters of the Resistance, though. It seemed that Basiira, much like Evfra himself, felt acutely that there was a decade of lost time to make up for. The evening after their conversation at the shooting range, he had moved the few belongings he had into Evfra’s apartment.

Kett activity was still down without a new leader. Evfra was not optimistic enough to believe that they had abandoned their attempts on this corner of the galaxy, but it gave him a little breathing room to strategise, rebuild, and coordinate with the Nexus.

He’d assigned his husband to training the newest recruits, which had been meant to be a temporary occupation, but Basiira did well with the eager men and women. Though he’d never fought the kett on a battlefield, his time as a prisoner of war had given him a unique understanding of their intimidation tactics. More importantly, he was just the right mix of assertive and personable needed by younger recruits, who might look at Evfra with awe, but balk at his brash tone.

One after the other, Evfra did meet Basiira’s friends, too, most of whom were back on Havarl with their families now. They liked to tease Basiira about all the romantic things he had apparently said about Evfra. When they talked of their past, Evfra sat quietly by Basiira’s side, listened closely and held his hand.

Olvek had fitted Basiira for a mechanic hand that worked as well as a real one. Basiira had opted for a model that was clearly synthetic with a smooth silver sheen to it. “I won’t forget what the kett have taken, but it’s pointless to hold on to the loss. I can do less with one hand than two,” he’d told Evfra. He still wouldn’t get the eye replaced, as he didn’t find his different vision to be a burden anymore, but Evfra saw no reason to press him on the issue. As long as Basiira was happy, Evfra was, too; and Basiira liked to joke that if he had no scars left on his face, he would look meek next to Evfra. 

It would have been as close to perfect as Evfra’s life had been in a long time if it hadn’t been for the lingering nausea he’d felt for a couple of weeks now. Probably just a minor bug, but vexing in that it refused to get even a little better over time. He hadn’t kept breakfast to himself for a fortnight, though he made sure not to eat it around Basiira because of that, unwilling to disturb his good mood. If he ever looked a little pale walking into the headquarters in the mornings, the angaran squeamishness in talking about sickness saved him from invasive questions from his people.

Then Jaal landed with the Pathfinder and, of course, it was one of the first things he asked about. He had run in on Evfra cleaning away his sick in the bathroom sink at the headquarters, though, so perhaps he had a little justification.

“Where are your manners?” Evfra snapped, anyway.

“The aliens don’t mind talking about sickness at all, you know. It must be rubbing off on me.”

“Always figured posting you there was a mistake,” Evfra grunted. Of course, Jaal had been like this before. Open like a book and asking the same of others. Even though Jaal was a little awkward about sickness, it didn’t often stop him when he felt it important to know. “It’s nothing.” Evfra ran a cold, wet hand over his face. “I just feel off in the mornings. I’m still gaining weight, so it can hardly be a real issue.”

Jaal stared at him. “Around your stomach?”

“What does it matter if...” Evfra interrupted himself as common sense threw in his face what Jaal was suggesting. His heart sped up so rapidly it felt like it had stopped for a moment to shift gears. “No, that’s not possible.”

After all, as soon as he’d talked things out with his husband, he had gone to Olvek and asked to be put on contraception. It was very unlikely to have failed.

Of course, it wouldn’t have had to, he realised. He had slept with his husband the night before.

“I – need to see Olvek,” Evfra muttered blankly.

And so he did. It was, in the end, a very small and routine procedure. Olvek was the first to congratulate him. When Jaal saw him walking out of the med bay, probably still looking like he’d been struck in the face, he smiled widely.

“So?”

“You were right,” Evfra muttered. “Don’t shout it through the room yet.”

Jaal brimmed with enthusiasm.

“I didn’t even know you could carry.”

“I had all but forgotten it myself – obviously. Now how do I tell Basiira?”

“Why would he mind?”

Evfra looked at Jaal, then at his feet. Why would he indeed? He was so used to seeing everything as an obstacle in his path, a problem to be solved, that he’d failed to consider the idea that perhaps something could be easy for once. Perhaps it would make most sense to be cautiously optimistic.

After all, why shouldn’t he have a child with his husband?

-

“Basiira, do you have a moment?”

Basiira, who stood at a console scrolling through the recent list of newcomers, looked up at him and smiled. He always smiled to see Evfra and it always stirred warmth in his chest. 

“How can I help you?”

Evfra waved him out of the room and onto a balcony, which in true Aya fashion was overgrown with thick leaves broad as plates and sweet-smelling flowers. He’d have preferred the biting winds of Voeld right now, which had always calmed his nerves, but was also very happy he’d never told Basiira such news with that backdrop. They had waited to have children, as they had raised a handful of siblings and Basiira’s younger cousins already, not as their true parents, but busy with them nonetheless. Their loss, as well as that of Evfra’s sisters, had torn holes wide enough into Evfra’s heart without adding a child who he’d raised from the first day to the count of corpses.

“Evfra?”

Evfra pushed the thought away. This moment was not about losing people.

“I went to Olvek just now. I have been feeling ill lately.”

Basiira’s steel hand gripped his wrist. Evfra looked up and realised how, coupled with his silence, this news must have arrived. He quickly shook his head.

“I’m not sick. It’s just that – you remember the night you brought me the flower?”

“Of course.”

“We didn’t use protection and apparently, we got the appropriate consequences. I’m pregnant.”

He could hardly finish the sentence before Basiira had enveloped him in his arms, laughing loudly. Evfra breathed out, somehow still relieved. He pressed a kiss to Basiira’s lips.

“Are you certain?” Basiira asked.

“Yes, I just got the test back.”

“Wonderful.” Basiira let him go to place a hand on his stomach. “Well, we have missed ten years. If we are to be true angara, it makes sense we’d start to make a lot of children quickly. There’ll have to be five or six in the end at least,” he joked.

“Let’s first see how I deal with this one,” Evfra said, finally smiling. “Though with you as the other father, maybe we can risk it.”


End file.
